


Ship of Theseus

by Taniushka12



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (they fall in love), Cannibalism, M/M, Mild Gore, Romance, Skinning Alive, Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives), a desolation & a flesh avatar work together at a restaurant what happens next WILL shock you, bah... using the statement format to talk about my ocs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:06:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29120181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taniushka12/pseuds/Taniushka12
Summary: Statement of Elliot Hayes, regarding his life, his work at a restaurant and the subsequential romance he has with his boss, and the sighing of a skinning alive at the hands of said lover.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	Ship of Theseus

**Author's Note:**

> I finished writing this like 6 months ago but never posted it because first I needed to make an introductory post about them, [which is this one :)](https://tanis-drawings-2point0.tumblr.com/post/627999272145764352/some-sketches-of-my-two-tma-ocs-marcus-and) Gotta love a desolation/beholding guy who just wants to have fun and an evil neutral chef who thinks of himself as true neutral at worst dfgdfg. Also they're both trans! Implied, but still important, bc I'm trans and I love them u_u
> 
> Anyway BIG WARNING for someone being drugged & graphically being skinned alive at the end, obviously, and mentions of minor arson, mutilation & cannibalism (and self mutilation/cannibalism), and also Hunger.

Statement begins.

I need to start this "statement" leaving something clear. I do not like you, Archivist Jon, I've heard about you, and your whole "eye" thing, and how the people that tell you their story start having nightmares about it. I don't like that whole business, I think you're nothing but a parasite. And I can't wait for this entire place to burn to the ground.

That being said, I'm already here, aren't I? So where should I begin? I could talk to you about my childhood, I'm sure you'd like that, all about my high school years on an all-girl catholic school. But there's not a lot to tell honestly... Despite how it might sound, I didn't have a bad time there. I forgot everything about it of course, everything that wasn't the recess gossip that would be heard from the bathroom, where I liked to hide with my malfunctioning zippo and some cheap cigarettes. I liked hearing all the different rumors all across school and, unlike the likes of you, wait for the tastiest to drop and actually do something about it. Sure, at the time it couldn't be anything too big, some secret cheating here and there, broken friendships, rich girls getting into drugs, the usual.

But what came after was the best part. The screaming of the nuns, the whispered rumors on the stone hallways and, God, the revenges. Lemme tell you, Jon, there's nothing quite as vicious as wronged kids and teenagers. I had so much **_fun_ **back then, unwantedly helping everybody get revenge on everybody, burning lockers and stealing and stuff. Nobody would pay attention to the quiet kid, so I've always get away with it.

The couple of girls that knew I was behind it all loved me. Looking back it really is a shame I never liked women, we could have had so much fun... But anyway. Fun times. I'd even call it a happy childhood, all things considered.

When I grew up I started working as a waiter on a different restaurant and state every few months, because you'll really be surprised at how stupid people are. Or Naïve. People would order food and then immediately start talking about their secrets as if I wouldn't just eardrop at the juiciest parts! Secrets, crimes, fraud, cheating, even murder one time. I've heard some real nasty stuff be said with a mouthful of spaghetti bolognese. Maybe they don't think waiters are people too, think nobody would listen or do anything about it. Either way, depending on what it was I'd let it pass, burn the person's house or the person themselves down or... I'd have some fun. I'd check on the people, I'd follow them around for some time gathering info and stuff and then I'd drop all of it to someone that I know will make the most noise possible. I've broken so many marriages, started so many internal wars, it truly is hilarious all the things you can do listening and with the power of speech. How easy it is to suddenly twist someone's life with nothing but words. Truthful words, of course, it wouldn't be nearly as fun as if I were lying, but words nonetheless.

And fire, of course.

I bet you're wondering about it, aren't you? How the whole... fire thing started. Let it be said, things got easier when I had to stop using my old zippo and when people could get burned simply when grabbing my arm, but I'm not here to talk about that, am I? No, I think I'm here to talk about him. Marcus.

Now, Marcus H. Ruiz was the man in charge of the newest place I was working in after my last job ended up in a mob boss getting killed, three police stations getting bombed and I fleeying to another state. This restaurant was small yet nice. Modest. And it was obvious Marcus liked cooking for he always was in the kitchen despite not needing to. He said the kitchen always needed people and even offered me to teach me the secrets of cooking a couple of times. Looking back that should have ticked me off, the way he said it, but... well, that was Marcus.

I went on my usual routine when one night I forgot my phone, and when I walk in the kitchen what do I find, Jon? My boss, chopping someone's arm off. That was a surprise, I'm not gonna lie. In the week or so of knowing the man he was this affably nice man who didn't look like could hurt a fly, much less do manslaughter, but before I could even begin to think the multiple ways in which I could end his whole career something freaky happened.

Sorry for not painting a more complete picture of the place before, but now I think it's important to note the _four_ arms on the table. Two lefts and, with the one he had just chopped, two rights. I got a chill by looking at it and thinking for some reason that they were all from the same person, the unconscious man on the table. It was stupid, but something deep in me just Knew that whatever I was looking at wasn't natural, the coagulated blood sticking to the butcher's knife and quickly stopping the man's bleeding. I don't know what I'd have seen if I stood there looking at the empty air besides the man's shoulder, but now I know I wouldn't have liked it.

And then I did something extremely stupid; I stepped off the shadows and told the guy straight on that I saw what he was doing. I don't know what I was expecting, I don't even think I thought about it thoroughly as I should have done, but nothing prepared me to Marcus' shocked face and him begging me to not tell anyone, that he would give me a raise and I wouldn't have to work anymore. Looking back he was obviously bluffing, hell, he was probably thinking how to kill me in one hit, but before he could get closer I told him I wasn't planning on snitching on him. I wanted to know how he did it. He replied that he didn't have any idea what I was talking about and I pointed at the arms and told him what I thought. That he could do weird things happen, just like me.

We talked then, about his properties, hinting about the things I could and already did, while he offered some of the stuff he was planning to cook with the meat he just took of the now luckily unconscious man on the table. I told him no, that even as an arsonist and an occasional murdered I had standards, and, even at the time, it was kinda cute to see the disappointment on his face.

Anyway, we became business partners on the business of not-quite-Death, I kept his Special Ingredents as a secret and he used his influences every time I messed with the wrong people -you'll be surprised to know the amount of influence a chef has- while I tried to understand... well, all of This, if you know what I'm talking about. The Lightless Flame, the Cult full of weirdos with no subtlety called it; Desolation, another name I heard thrown around. Not to mention the bone fella that Marcus told me he sometimes dealt with, I'm sure you've heard of them.

So as I learned from this esoteric world I brought him people for him to cut from, and we... well... we grew closer with time... I don't know how it happened, I don't know why it happened, but we kinda... fell in love in the way.

My plan was originally to learn as much of this part of the world as Marcus could tell me and learn as much as him so I could stab him in the back, I still sometimes think about how terribly betrayed and destroyed that would make him, but then it came a time where I realised I simply couldn't do that. Because Marcus, you see, is the most ridiculous man you could ever imagine.

One night I asked him if he opened a restaurant so he could cook people without anyone noticing, and he answered that it had been a happy coincidence, and that he likes people's meat _almost_ as much as cooking. Once I asked him what drew him into this path and he told me that as a teen, after his mom died and his dad remarried, his stepmom was a hardcore vegetarian and he missed so much the feeling of meat under his teeth that he'd bit down his own flesh. I remember when I asked him what the H. on his name stood for and he replied that when he was able to legally change his name he was so excited he wrote down Hannibal thinking it would be both cool and fitting, but that now he was embarrassed by it! Sometimes I hear him practice random lines that only a movie villain would say and he genuinely thinks they sound cool! The man is so earnest in everything he does, it's absolutely hysterical!

And I know what you're thinking, Jon, what does this have to do with my statement?

I need you to understand, despite the fact that he's a literal hannibal cannibal, he's as much as a good guy as he can be. He never kills the people he slaughters, he drugs them with something that makes them think it's a fucked up nightmare and by the end of the night they're as complete as they arrived, not a single piece of meat where it shouldn't belong, and despite a horrible nightmare feel and maybe, Maybe their skin with the sightless color off, they were unharmed. If they presented an issue I would be the one to get rid of them, but he didn't know that part.

Now, after saying all that, something **bad** happened a couple of months ago.

In all the places I worked in I've always seen the silent war between the restaurant and health inspectors from afar, but the man who came every so often to Marcus' place seemed like he _knew_ what was going on there and couldn't wait to find something to put an end to the establishment. And eventually he found some blood we didn't pay attention to at the time and gleefully closed it, breaking Marcus' heart. He loved that place, Jon, he loved it more than the meat, than the butchering, than me, that restaurant was his pride and joy. And, fittingly enough, his place of feast.

I've never seen him so sad in the entire Year and more that I worked with him, he mopped around on his living room for entire days too sad to get up and do anything as I tried to find enough information to either blackmail the man or make him do another inspection, because our restaurant IS the pinnacle of health, manslaughter aside. But while I was busy doing that as the days progressed... things started to get pretty weird.

He was sad, yes, looked even angry and while it was a strange sight it was to be expected. But he was, and I don't mean this as a joke of any kind, hungry. He'd always eat a bit of whatever he was cooking in the restaurant and he had always the parts he'd chop off from people but that's not what I mean. He ate, as always. He'd make lunch and dinner and he'd make these wonderful looking and perfectly tasting plates, and he'd push one for me even though he knows I don't need to eat and he'd look famelic even as he cut down the tender meat to chew on it.

I didn't understand how, but Marcus was Starving. I'd come back to his house and I'd see him holding his head between his hands, mismatched coloring on his arms in the shape of a bite mark, half eaten beef thrown on the ground with his ceramic china all over the place. He'd grew irritable, talked less, and once he even yelled at me and immediately apologised. He was feeling terrible, and for once in my life, I felt terrible with him. I would had happily let him tear me apart and eat every single bit of meat in my bones as many times it was necessary, eat my organs too, make a fine plate as I know he would, if only to see him smile again. But it had been sadly some time since I was last made of flesh and blood, you know? (And, I know you do, Jon, I've heard about your little encounter with that one woman from the cult). So i just sat there, trying to listen in silence as he ranted about his painful hunger, trying to not to enjoy it too in some weird way.

Eventually he got it back, of course. The restaurant. Nothing that a good scrubbing and moving some influences couldn't change. But it just... wasn't the same. For all the goofy things I can say about him, Marcus was also surprisingly spiteful, and it took a while for him to go back to the earnestly loving man I knew. Not to mention the times he snapped at our co-workers, visibly frustrated, although they seemed more used to the strange change that I did, and I still don't want to think what could have possibly happen in the past.

Because, here's the kicker, one day he asked me to "do my thing" and subtly bring the original bane of all his troubles, the health inspector. I did it of course, I'd do anything he asked me to do, and after I... let’s say subtly brought him in, I stayed around for the show. Don't get me wrong, I might have a thing for fire but seeing parts get chopped off again and again isn't exactly my idea of a good time, but sometimes I like to watch Marcus work, put on that wannabe Hannibal Lecter mask, it's fun stuff! Generally speaking...

But he was silent this time, watching and waiting for the man in the chair to wake up, picking a knife that at the time I thought was too thin to cut through flesh and bone. He had that look on his face, this... hunger, which now I realise had nothing to do with consuming the remaining meat.

When the man woke up he couldn't move, I still have no idea what exactly he used for that but I really don't want to know. Marcus said something. Marcus said a lot of things, actually, in this part of the story, but I can't remember what, I was too focused on the way he slowly dug the knife on the man's skin and dragged it through the outline of his arm. His movements were delicate as he held his hand with one hand and cut through with the other, shushing the chocked up noise he made with his closed mouth.

From where I was sitting I could see the muscles when he put away the skin, not a single scratch on them, before he started working on the other arm, and then the legs, hands, and so on. Marcus was looking better now, less ravenous, as he softly spoke to him, showing off his proficiency as a very clean chef, talking about... God, I don't know, something about the right ways to dispose of chicken's skin without making a mess and also bacteria, I honestly have no idea, by this point I stopped paying attention.

It was... Have you've ever been to those restaurants where you see how they made your food, Jon? It was like that, in some twisted way. And I'm not talking about the _meat_ , I'm talking about the pure fear I could see in those man's eyes as he cried. I'm talking about the fucking spectacle my boyfriend did, not for me, not for him, but to whatever he was feeding. I couldn't look away, Jon, I was fascinated and terrified and sickened all at the same time, the musky and metal smell mixed with the general fear, and it was absolutely intoxicating.

When he finished he disposed of the body with a warning for the future, because of course he wouldn't eat him. He probably thought he would taste sour or something. And when he looked at me, Jon, I felt... love. His love, warm and sweet like a peach shaped heart, easy as burning a piece of paper with a touch. He apologized profoundly again for how he acted the last months and that it wouldn't happen again (whether that was the truth or a wistful lie, I do not know) (I realized then I didn't know a lot about the man I loved, but well, isn't that what love is? To learn something new every day?) and I told him that whether it happened again or not, I didn't want to see that horror show again.

He smiled so sweetly, kissed me so tenderly without actually touching me with his bloodstained hands, and promised I wouldn't. And then he asked me if I wanted to eat some meatloaf. And I said yes, of course. He's great cooking meatloaf.

PD: Oh, and if you're wondering if a man will come to you with the same skin-cutting story, don't worry about that. He didn't spend long on the street before I killed him. Monsters can afford a few mercies, can't we, Jon?

Statement ends

**Author's Note:**

> You can feel how much I want to write a full slow burn fic of them but also I dont Want to write all that so... statement fic u_u If you want to know more about them [I have a tag of them on tumblr!!](https://yaboyspodcastpalace.tumblr.com/tagged/tani's%20tma%20ocs) Feel free to ask me anything about them n_n 
> 
> Hope you liked it!!


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